A St. Petersburg resident was fined for a comment about Putin in Crimea

A resident of St. Petersburg, Valentin Kiselev, was fined 400,000 rubles in a case of justifying terrorism due to a comment under the news about the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the annexed Crimea. This is reported by the United Press Service of the City Courts.

Kiselev left a comment in the public “Overheard Tikhvin” in the social network “VKontakte” in March 2023. “There will be a good sniper to finish this louse, sucking the blood of the people,” Kiselev wrote.

After the arrest, the St. Petersburg man was first placed in a pre-trial detention center, but later released under the prohibition of certain actions. The court imposed a fine of 600,000 rubles on Kiselev, but reduced it by taking into account the time he spent in the pre-trial detention center. He was also banned from managing sites and channels on the Internet for two years.

• Russia annexed the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Krym and the city of Sevastopol in 2014. The annexation was not recognized by the vast majority of countries in the world.

• After the start of a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities began to use the article on the justification of terrorism against those who oppose this war.
• According to the statistics of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of Russia, in 2022, 274 people were convicted under the article on the justification of terrorism (both parts). 16 convicts were sentenced to forced treatment. In the first half of 2023, 142 people were convicted under the same article, 7 people were sentenced to forced treatment.